ASPIRE, the HFES 69th International Annual Meeting, was held in Chicago from October 12th to 17th. The Illinois virtual reality (VR) project team (Pallabi Bhowmick, Dhruti Rajesh, Noah Olivero, Wendy A. Rogers) participated in a session entitled “Bridging Aging and Technology: HRI and VR Applications”. Dr. Bhowmick presented the results of their literature review regarding the challenges older adults experience with VR and strategies to overcome them. Specifically, she discussed the key design recommendations, environment and hardware considerations, and the importance of addressing ageism in VR development. Please visit the ASPIRE website for more information on this presentation. 

Additionally, a team of researchers including Dr. Tina Nie (CREATE alum), Dr. Renato Ferreira Leitao Azevedo (CREATE Trainee Pilot Grantee), Dr. Dan Morrow (CREATE Scientific Advisory Board member), and Dr. Rogers received the Best Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare Article Award for “Developing feedback visualizations to support older adults’ medication adherence”. Pictured are Tina, Renato, and Wendy with the journal editor, Farzan Sasangohar (Dan was unable to attend the award ceremony).  For more information about the 2025 HFES Awards, please visit their website.